Burt and networks

At lunch, fellow PhD student introduced me to his supervisor, Mark Fenton-O'Creevy. This professor not only supervises financial research but also has an interest in social capital. He suggested I look at Ronald Burt's work, because of the mediating effect of bridgers of structural holes. He suggested that consultants might act as bridges. {Newell, 2004 #1109} did some interesting research on bridging in a project team. They used a case study to show the extent to which ERP team members used their social capital bridges for the collective public good of the project versus their own personal good.

"First, in this particular ERP project team, the individual members did appear to be using their social capital, but more for their own personal good than for the public good of the project. The reason for this appeared to be linked to the insecurity of the project."

Another interesting issue related to the bridging, which is where they cite Burt.

"Bridging occurs where ties between people are ‘weak’, thus providing brokerage opportunities within the social system (Burt, 1992). Within the context of an IT project team, there is a need to develop and use external linkages because these bridging relationships are necessary for access to knowledge and information that is dispersed across the organization."

Both bridging and bonding are necessary for knowledge integration. I see in my first case study much bonding within a development team, but I see also bridging through the contractors accessing and sharing knowledge with clients on the team. But it's a two-way thing; clients give the contractors knowledge too.

Burt's written a lot. His 2000 paper on network structure of social capital is looonnnggg.

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BURT, R. S. (1992) Structural holes : the social structure of competition, Cambridge, MA; London, Harvard University Press.
BURT, R. S. (1997) The Contingent Value of Social Capital. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42, 339-365.
BURT, R. S. (2000) THE NETWORK STRUCTURE OF SOCIAL CAPITAL. Research in Organizational Behavior, 22, 345.
BURT, R. S. (2001) Structural holes versus network closure as social capital. IN LIN, N., COOK, K. S., BURT, R. S. & DE GRUYTER, A. (Eds.) Social capital: theory and research. University of Chicago and INSEAD.
BURT, R. S. (2004) Structural Holes and Good Ideas. American Journal of Sociology, 110, 349-399.
BURT, R. S. (2007) SECONDHAND BROKERAGE: EVIDENCE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF LOCAL STRUCTURE FOR MANAGERS, BANKERS, AND ANALYSTS. Academy of Management Journal, 50, 119-148.
BURT, R. S., HOGARTH, R. M. & MICHAUD, C. (2000) The Social Capital of French and American Managers. Organization Science, 11, 123-147.
NEWELL, S., TANSLEY, C. & HUANG, J. (2004) Social Capital and Knowledge Integration in an ERP Project Team: The Importance of Bridging AND Bonding. British Journal of Management, 15, 43-S57.